As you may have noticed, I've been rather uncommunicative of late compared to normal. A good deal has been going on, and what with the many transitions I find myself experiencing, I thought a bit of personal news was in order.
Firstly, I've rather predictably fallen behind where I'd like to be on the rewrite and update of my guide, "The Light Works in Mysterious Ways".
This is for a number of reasons;
-A couple questions have come up which I've wanted to resolve via testing before I officially launch the new content
-With an official announced date for 2.3 release set at this coming Tuesday, I've needed to mesh everything with the 2.3 changes. My previous policy has been to have the guide reflect the current state of affairs on live, rather than vague and fuzzy PTR reality, but with 2.3 imminent, the rather massive quantity of changes ought to be included.
At least, the release of 2.3 gives me a good goal to shoot for.
-I been busy with other projects (see below).
-The damned guide is freaking huge, plain and simple. Covering not one, not two, but three class roles with anything close to claiming a useful level of detail doesn’t make for light reading.
I continue working on it, though I suspect that there will be a good portion of empty reserved space, particularly in the Retribution section, when I finally get the repost underway.
I haven’t so far brought it up in my blog, but a lot of you probably know already that I recently made a change of guilds.
A little over a week ago I was recruited as a trial member into the guild <Premonition> of Alleria, otherwise known as Fame's guild.
<Premo> had killed Illidan previously, and the motivation for my recruitment was based on forward-looking preparation for The Sunwell and other future content to be conquered.
The idea is essentially that I, as a prot paladin, can be cultivated as a resource which the vast majority of other top-50 guilds have neglected, and provide a competitive advantage in the race for world firsts.
One of the officers phrased it
"I find it difficult to believe that Blizzard would go through such trouble to buff Prot Paladins so much for end-game tanking recently, and NOT have encounters in Sunwell where they absolutely shine."
To be quite honest, I'm still reeling a bit from the transition.
When Fame approached me with the prospect of joining <Premo> with him, I was sitting outside of SSC, benched while my guild <Pizza Warriors> worked on Vashj, playing with Horde.
One of the interesting things about having your writing fairly well known is the level 1 whispers.
Even over the several months since they started, I've never really gotten used to them.
I'll get a random whisper from a level 1 night elf...
[w from Nehobo]:
how much spell hit rating do i need to make JoV worth it?
(........????)
[w to Nehobo]:
42
[w from Nehobo]:
k
and that will be it.
At times it gets disconcerting. Other times it's gratifying.
My good friend, a Brazilian player, would play on Joanadark occasionally and would tell me about getting level 1 whispers intended for me.
"Sometimes they say
'Oh thank you so much the things you write they help me a lot, you are awesome!', and I tell them
'Oh thanks man, I really appreciate it!'
And then sometimes they say
'WTF you talk so much bullshit!', and I tell them
'Sorry, you have the wrong person, you're looking for my friend.' "
So my first reaction upon getting a tell from a level 1 alt was "Oh God."
But then Fame revealed that it was him, and asked me to hop on xyz vent with him.
For a few seconds, I just kinda blinked.
It took me a moment to realize that it wasn't, in fact, someone too lazy to do their gear math themselves and wanting me to do it for them.
Since I was benched anyway and not doing anything in particular except listening to my raid leader rant at the Mages for being terrible, I hopped on vent.
And now I am in <Premonition>.
It's been a profound transition for me.
I haven't done much guild changing at all in my entire history of playing this game. On Brekke I've been in merely 2 raiding guilds previously, and only changed from the first to the second because the first disbanded.
So the past week has been a process of getting my bearings.
Whether to take Fame up on his offer or not was a tough choice for me. There was a lot that went into my decision, not the least of which was the advice of my guildies in <Pizza Warriors> who I immediately went to with the problem.
In the end, I decided to take the risk, because I like risks. The challenge appealed to me.
Not to mention (I'll be honest) glowing visions in my head of the victory for the Paladin community a world-first kill featuring a tankadin would represent.
While there were a number of things about <Pizza Warriors> which I was dissatisfied with, I still love that guild dearly. On all of Spirestone server I think they have the most tenacious drive for success that I've ever seen. They aren't the most innately talented players, or the most knowledgeable, but to be a <Pizza Warrior> was to give absolutely 200%.
Zerg is not a crude strategy, it is a virtue. The virtue of hurling yourself at opposition without a second thought.
But I was ready for something new.
I left <Pizza Warriors> with their blessing and best wishes, and transferred to Alleria.
Some Reactions:
PvP--->PvE
Spirestone, my old server, is PvP and proud of it, while Alleria is Normal. That transition has been a mixed blessing.
While I don't find it credible that leveling up a character on a PvE server is significantly faster than leveling up on a PvP server, I DO hold that it is significantly less frustrating.
While time may move at a constant rate, leveling on a PvP server is filled with times when you simply want to rip out your hair, and that can defiantly make things
seem much longer.
I definitely DON'T miss being ganked at the summoning stone, despite the irony of that statement coming from an ex-<Pizza Warrior> (the guild has a rep for holding summoning stones to the last man, though that is more, I think, due to the fact that our lack of PvP skill in general and PvE gear and specs specifically made us inclined to stick together in packs for mutual protection in the wild, rather than because of any unprovoked ganking).
It is a constant war going on on PvP server, and it could be a real detriment to raiding when you encountered a hostile group of the opposite faction idling outside the zone portal. Sometimes you just want to scream at the undead dancing on your body to just
"leave us the hell alone! We just want to summon the damned replacement priest so we can kill this damned boss and go to sleep you jerks!"
On the other hand, one attribute of many PvE servers is that the alliance outnumber the horde by a massive amount, and the gap in progression between the two sides is similarly huge.
I see that as a very negative thing, since the presence of the opposite faction, while in many cases frustrating and inconvenient, brought a great deal of flavor to the game.
You got to know the other side. You recognize their names; learn their styles and haunts and personalities.
A mutual respect is developed.
On Spirestone, the race on progression between the two factions has been constant for as long as I can remember, and the lead has shifted back and forth more than once.
Similarly, in PvP there developed rivalries and even bitter feuds. Though long a thing of the past, the virtual war between the alliance guild <Addiction> (the progression leader for a long time) and the horde guild <Malicious> (who infamously beat them to C'thun) is legendary.
The server developed a rich and colorful history, filled with stories as epic as any scripted within the NPC encounters.
Blackrock Mountain, the location of two raid instances and three level 60 dungeons, was a place of constant battle. Among the rubble and tunnels and vaulting arches, blood flowed among the rocks.
Some of my fondest memories in the game involve raids upon the horde capital.
The distinction was that such raids were not necessarily with the intention of killing Thrall. Killing Thrall was something you did if the town was disappointingly deserted.
There is this dead-end alley, right next to Thrall's Chamber, which was sheltered by the curve in the building providing a shield to Line-of-Sight from the road.
That alley was our trap.
I led raid groups in defense of that alley, defiantly next the the Warchief himself, more times than I can count. World PvP on a raid level is unlike anything which arenas or battlegrounds are able to offer. The entire dynamic is different.
Stakes are higher, the fight more furious, and if you allow your enemies to focus-fire, no amount of healing or resilience will prevent their target's imminent death.
There are actually tanks in raid-level PvP. There is both coordination as a whole raid and independent action as groups and individuals.
The victory over our alley-defenses came not through killing our fighters, or ccing our healers, or even staying alive, but through pushing our line back around the corner of the alley, depriving us of our Line-of-Sight shield.
While much spontaneous world PvP was incredibly frustrating and detrimental, some of it was quite the reverse.
Sometimes, world PvP was the stuff of legend.
THAT, I will miss.
I do think that PvP, or even the
threatof PvP, can make a person a better player. It teaches you how to take care of yourself, and keep yourself alive unaided. It teaches you movement and understanding of the terrain. A healthy amount of fear makes you more aware, quicker to react, more drilled in your arsenal of abilities (ALL of them), and resultantly better prepared for PvE.
Nomak, one of the best Paladins to ever inhabit Spirestone, and an incredibly skilled PvPer, would famously never go anywhere without a collection of Swim Potions, Invisibility Potions, Free Action Potions, and Speed Potions.
So far on Alleria, I have seen a grand total of merely 3 horde players outside of BGs.
You are not prepared
Before transferring, I was careful to do my research.
After going through the Auction House and comparing prices, I managed to pull off making a little under 3k gold following the transfer by buying cheaply priced commodities on Spirestone and reselling them on Alleria.
I've also managed to spend all of that.
It took joining a guild further advanced in progression than I had been previously to realize how behind my character was from where it could be.
One of the first things I did was begin a grueling 120-Badge of Justice grind for my epic Fire Resistance set, in preparation for tanking Flames of Azzinoth.
Additionally, I put a lot of work into improving my healing set, and while still modest, I've managed to raise it to a point where I'm actually capable of contributing meaningfully if asked to heal, which is something.
I made sure to overstock on raid consumables of every kind, as I know how much making a good impression is important as an App. I also figured that, due to the difference in gear level, it would help my viability in the early stages especially if I over-consumable in comparison to everyone else.
I belatedly capped my Aldor rep at exalted, as that deficit stuck out like a sore thumb.
I was also careful to socket with blues and enchant to the highest quality each piece of gear I already had and which I received, even if expecting the availability of hyjal gems for new pieces of gear.
I've been meaning to powerlevel up my cooking and fishing skill for a long time, however these tasks I've unfortunately had to shelve for the time being.
I also went out and crafted my own Nightfall axe for off-tanking on my own initiative, so as to show my new guild that I had the right attitude.
Overall, I've been incredibly busy. The word of the day has been "Preparation".
Now, granted, it was <Premo> that came to me, not the reverse, and I made sure that they were under no illusions about the state of my character when they made the offer, but nevertheless I feel that a lot will be riding on my performance in my first Hyjal.
The Art of Spamming 2
Since my transfer, my opportunities to actually raid with my new guild have been infrequent. This is merely because of my ongoing process of readying myself.
However, the chances I have had to play with these guys have been extremely interesting.
Gear aside, the difference in basic skill level of the members of the guild compared to my old server is pretty noticeable.
It's a wonderful experience to run heroics with players who really dominate their class.
On Spirestone, if someone asked me who I knew that was a skilled Mage, I could think of several people from a variety of guilds who were really just "good" on a very basic level. But they were exceptions. Within each guild you would have a smattering of "good" players, and then the rest average.
In <Premo>, the whole guild is "good".
I don't dominate anymore, which is wonderful.
Working with great players highlights the things I can personally be doing better. I've already improved based on the experiences doing heroics with the members of <Premo>, especially Cherrytree the Paladin and Maalakai the Warlock.
And these heroics have also no doubt been part of my on-going evaluation.
In a series of heroics one night, I got a very real sense that Maalakai was consciously doing things to put me, the tank, in situations where I needed to react and use different abilities as a Paladin and skills as a tank in order to see how I managed them.
I absolutely loved that, and that single night was one of the most challenging and stimulating series of 5-mans I've ever done.
I also performed at my absolutely best the whole night, and not once did I let a DPS die or not come through instinctively to meet each test I sensed. I came away very confident that my drilled reactions where good, my rotation solid, and that I was prepared to deal with emergencies, gear or not.
Though, at the same time things aren't fully meshed quite yet. The other guys are still getting used to the way a Paladin tank operates, and I'm still getting used to them as well.
In the same series of heroic runs, we had some problems early on where the Mage, Zalea, who was trying to sheep, and myself, trying to take advantage of Avenger's Shield to get initial aggro, were getting in each others' way.
We would impede each other in our actions a couple times, resulting in more having to be tanked than was necessary.
But it was once again a big confidence booster to see how, very quickly, Zalea and I adapted to each other and proceeded to pull off some of the most beautiful joint timing I've seen time after time again in the clears following.
Things I need to improve on are:
-My reaction speed to locational dangers (I died twice on Kael due to poor response time to inconvenient flamestrike placement. Lack of the movement speed buff is no excuse.)
-Awareness of my aura (forgetting this element of my class and running around with Crusader Aura in the main tank group is simply unacceptable)
-Covering other players' needs without prompting (I needed to be verbally asked to rebuff the warlock tank with Salv in the middle of the Kael fight following his add dying. that shouldn't be necessary.)
-Be more aware of other tanks' adds and be more ready to taunt them or pick them up if they should get loose. (On Kael, the Infinity Blades got pulled off the bear tank on one of the attempts, and proceeded to kill three people with me having full awareness of it. A simply ranged stun would have saved lives.)
Overall, I need to simply concentrate on not panicking, and keeping myself focused and alert.
A big part of that is going to be coming to fights as fully grounded in the mechanics of the encounter as possible.
I'm grateful at least that I didn't make a fool of myself on kael on any of the 101 ways it's possible to do so in that encounter.
As luck would have it, Kael approved, and gave me his Royal Gauntlets of Silvermoon and my t5 chest, which i have enchanted and socketed temporarily.
General Thoughts
I seem to be meshing as well as can be expected with the new guild, which is a good thing. There are a good number of extremely likable people in <Premonition>, and I'm developing a healthy respect for the abilities of many of those with which I have grouped.
I've heard several positive comments, which is encouraging, and with luck I'll be reasonably accepted by most once I have a chance to demonstrate my abilities in a raid setting (assuming I don't completely embarrass myself).
However, the bar is, inevitably, set very high.
Funny thing about challenges, they tend to be hard.
)
